DCU Students practice MT

Lead by Dr. Dorothy Kenny and Dr. Stephen Doherty, over 50 DCU post graduates are learning to train Machine Translation (MT) engines in a variety of different languages and getting first-hand experience of using the latest KantanMT technology. Using DGT translation memories from the Acquis Communautaire (an open source translation memory directory provided by the European Commission), students are learning not only how to build engines and translate documents, but also how to evaluate their engines’ quality by utilising KantanMT’s automatic quality evaluation metrics.

“There is rapid technological shift towards more automated translation within the industry”, said Dr. Kenny, “and we want our students to graduate fully aware of the latest fusion of Machine Translation technology and the cloud. It’s important that they are comfortable with the use of Machine Translation as a way to improve translation productivity. ”

Dr. Kenny and Dr. Doherty offered encouraging feedback from their experiences while teaching with KantanMT. They particularly liked ‘the intuitive and easy to navigate user interface and the speed of use’ which meant that the majority of students were able to build their first engine within the space of a one hour lab.

Dr. Kenny and Dr. Doherty stressed the importance of proper education when it comes to translation technology. They aim to encourage their students to use Machine Translation technology in a proactive rather reactive manner in order to “empower them as professionals”.